Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Nova Slap Chops Hall 81-71

It was a night of infomercials. And what should have been a commercial for Seton Hall's chances to make a late season push for the NCAA tournament turned out to be a dud, reminiscent of the failed 1999 "Just For Feet" Super Bowl commercial. Rather than watching the Budweiser "Respect" commercial - or better yet, Justin Timberlake tearing off Janet Jackson's top - Ben and I were forced to sit through seemingly endless ads for cat hair removal, nose hair trimmers, Snuggies, and slap choppers. Ahh, the life of a Seton Hall basketball fan...

The Pirates travelled to the Pavillion Tuesday night to tackle newly anointed #2 Villa-no-fun. Everyone expected this old school Catholic school rivalry to be a great game; ESPNU brought in its big guns in Len Elmore and Dave O'Brien and Fortune 5,000 companies outbid each other for the highly coveted two minute infomercial slot. And, in typical Seton Hall fashion, the first thirty three minutes of the game were great.

J'zell had an unusually efficient game - nailing down jumpers as proficiently as a Slap Chop slices and dices carrots - and Gonzo even managed get Lil' El and Fero Hall off the bench for some quality playing time. And, in one of the more bizarre plays of the evening, Fero showed that he might have a future in Mens Volleyball after jumping through the roof to spike the basketball out of bounds. Nice kill, Fero! As usual, Keon and JT had outstanding defensive games, combining to more or less shut down Scottie "McBottie" Reynolds and Nova's dangerous guards for most of the game. Despite still struggling offensively, it is nice to see Neon contribute on the defensive side and be as much of a shutdown defender as we have.

However, despite all the lead changes and ties, it always felt like some pieces of the puzzle were missing. His Holy See got into foul trouble early and was a virtual non factor in the first half. Also, JRob and Keon saw more time on the bench than the hardwood in the first half leading Ben and I to wonder if our Holy Trinity had...gasp...transferred!?!? Scratching our collective heads as to where three of our best players were for the first half, Ben and I kept scratching (furiously) as the game wound down and our only offensive threat of the evening was sitting on the bench. Not seeing flagman that evening, had Gonzo chosen to wave the proverbial (blue and) white flag himself!? Was he simply trying to send J'zell a message? Whatever the case may be, our heads are still hurting two days later from all that scratching!

Another game and another disappointing loss, we decided to do the only thing two obsessive fanaticals would do...book the next flight to Pittsburgh! John and Gertrude Peterson wont know what hit them...